Sweet Talk

I wanted a girlfriend who was sexy and smart, so I picked up this hooker and gave her a copy of “Ulysses.” I figured it was easier to make a whore smart than the other way around, and also, okay, the sexy part was more important to me than the smart part of the equation. I guess if I am being honest, the smart part is just the icing on the cake.

I didn’t plonk the book down in front of her right away. I mean, give me some credit here; I think I’m a little more suave than that. I sauntered up to her there on the street corner where she was “hawking her wares,” if you will, and I sweet-talked her a bit. I told her that instead of the customary sex, I wanted to take her to Denny’s and buy her a hot-fudge sundae. At first she thought that was slang for some crazy-kinky act, but finally she acquiesced. Also I think she was just hungry. Also I think she had sort of given up on life and had developed a tendency to go along with whatever.

As a waitress set the dessert in front of her, I bet she was thinking, “Oh boy, this is the best hooker-date I have ever been on – I don’t have to have sex with him, plus I get a hot-fudge sundae.” But I’m sorry, toots – there’s no such thing as a free lunch, or as a free hot-fudge sundae on a hooker-date at Denny’s. She had only eaten one spoonful before I laid the thick hardcover tome before her. I was smiling smugly, thinking, “You are so very welcome for the culture and enlightenment, my dear little wanton floozy. My precious little herpes-ravaged honey-hole.”

Imagine my surprise when she said she had already read it!

“Oh yeah, that. Of course I’ve read it; it’s one of the most highly regarded works in the entire Modernist pantheon. I mean, duh. I even did my dissertation on it.”

I sat back, humbled and chastened. I had assumed that all hookers were dimwits. I assumed they became hookers because their career options were limited, on account of their being dimwits and all.

Imagine my surprise again when she read my thoughts!

“I’m no dimwit. I became a hooker because my father did bad things to me.”

“Oh?” I inquired, morbidly curious. Hey, I’m human.

“Yeah. He used to put me in a burlap sack with a bunch of rattlesnakes, and then he would beat the sack with a baseball bat.”

“Ouch.”

“Tell me about it.”

We sat there in awkward silence, and I realized that a gal can be both sexy and smart but there might still be awkward silences. Ah, life, you bastard!